Silently, I appeared behind the first guy to leave the warded area of the Blessed City. Before the guy could notice my presence, or anyone else was able to pick up on it, I placed a hand on his neck and used a combination of Mind and Blood Magic to knock him out. The attack used very little Astral Power, making it incredibly subtle, and he never had a chance to make noise. He simply fell unconscious, and I caught his collapsing body.

  Then, I reached out with my Ice Magic and continued his footsteps, making it look like he had kept going deeper into the forest, exactly where I was carrying. The big difference was that I wasn’t leaving any trace beyond a few tiny disturbances in the local Astral River. I doubted the Blessed City had anyone able to read such disturbances, or would even notice this guy’s absence in the few minutes it would take for those disturbances to fade back into the background noise of the Astral River and become impossible to trace. Unless they had some way to track their people’s souls or something like that, this guy would simply disappear into the forest.

  A little deeper in the forest, I came upon the remnants of an old road, devoid of snow, and that was where I stopped laying down the appropriate footprints. To anyone investigating, it would look like the guy had reached the road and continued down its path, his tracks ending here. A dedicated search would likely attempt to pick up where he had eventually left the road, but such a search would remain fruitless. Once the tracks were hidden, I used a bit of Wind Magic to spread his scent along the road, just in case they had someone who could track it. Afterwards, I checked, making sure that only the traces I had planted remained and nothing was left behind that might give away my involvement.

  Once I was confident that nobody would be able to track us, I jumped into a nearby tree and made my way over to the small cave I had prepared to hold a few of the locals. I didn’t want to keep them in Jademoon Tower, just in case Sunna had some way to send her people after me, even if I managed to get away without leaving a trace.

  It was the big risk with anything involving the faithful of a jealous god; the deity might just find a way to bend, or outright break, the rules. Maybe by issuing a quest, maybe by imparting a vision or something to their followers, or even by straight-up trading information, similar to the lessons Lady Hecate had given me in the past. It always came down to the cost and trouble the deity would suffer for their action, compared to the value of their follower.

  For example, if somebody were to kidnap Luna, I was pretty confident that Lady Hecate would happily twist the rules into pretzels and give me every advantage she could manage. Similarly, if I were to abduct Lorgar, the usual rules of non-interference would go out the window. Sunna might even decide to treat me as a fellow deity and bring her entire power to bear. At that point, I’d be screwed.

  One of my working hypotheses was that this was what had happened back on Mundus. Because I had successfully broken a divine prison, unleashing a primordial dragon in the process, I had fulfilled the conditions for direct interference. Or maybe because I had joined my power with that of the primordial dragon, either was possible. It would explain why Sunna had been able to burn me off the face of Mundus without apparent issues, even going so far as to curse the legacy Morgana left behind.

  There might have been repercussions for her, but, as far as I knew, those hadn’t been severe. Or maybe the repercussions were delivered in a different way, possibly by allowing Lady Hecate to give me more assistance than usual, but I had no way of knowing. So, at least for now, I was only making off with a mook or two, not one of the higher-levelled people, certainly not one of the five who had travelled here from New Dawn and, most definitely not with Lorgar himself. Sure, taking out Lorgar could destabilise the entire place, but it wasn’t something I was willing to risk without a good reason.

  Or a certain degree of separation, or plausible deniability. Just something to make sure I wouldn’t get death-beamned by the divine Sun.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  After depositing the guy I had caught in the dark cave, I started to weave together a complex web of Darkness Magic. Each strand was a little different; some were tangled into the Astral River, others were spun between places in the material world, but the intent of them all was the same. To conceal. To hide, to make sure nothing could penetrate the Darkness and find what was hidden within. It was elementary on its face, concealing something in the Darkness was amongst the first things I had ever learned to do with my Darkness Magic, but the execution was quite complex. The issue was that there were countless ways to find something, even if it was hidden in the Darkness. That was the very essence of divination magic, to find information that was unknown, hidden or concealed.

  So, each of the strands was woven a little differently; some included other elements, others were twisted in different dimensions, concealing those as much as I was able. It was a beautiful work that might never be tested, but if it were to be, I had a certain amount of confidence that it would hold up to anyone on Terra. Probably even a few people from Mundus, but given that those people had millennia to study and advance divination magic, I wasn’t as confident there. The real test, however, was the question of whether Sunna had the right spells to bestow, and a sufficiently competent Spellcaster to cast them if she did.

  A small part of me was quite excited to put my ability to the test, but a much bigger, more cautious part hoped that the people of the Blessed City would never notice that the guy hadn’t just left.

  Instead of risking that the guy woke up during the day and figured out a way to send a desperate prayer to Sunna, I kept him unconscious, studying as much of his mind as I could while he was in that state. I didn’t even try to break into the guy’s soul; I had a feeling that doing so would either shatter or outright kill him, making him useless as a test subject.

  Sadly, the unconscious mind was pretty dull. The guy’s instincts were active, as were the parts of his mind that were required to keep his body alive, but that was about it. There was no actual thought going on, but I should have expected that.

  To facilitate a bit of work, I carefully let the unconsciousness lapse while gently pushing him into a sleeping state, never allowing him to regain awareness. It was delicate work, but it worked and didn’t take long for the guy’s mind to become surprisingly active, his eyes flickering around under their closed lids.

  It didn’t take a genius to realise that the guy was dreaming, and a dreaming mind was something I wanted to study anyway. So, I started to carefully push forward, using the Darkness around us as a medium, alongside my Extrasensory Perception for Minds. The sensation was somewhat analogous to the one I felt when using a scrying construct, or when I used the combination of Blood and Mind Magic to control birds.

  The big, and obvious, difference was that the guy’s dreaming mind was a lot more active. While I kept lingering at the edge of his awareness, barely able to get a few glimpses into his mind, I felt somewhat safe. However, the glimpses I managed to get were incredibly unsatisfying. They were brief, without context, and utterly useless. I needed to get closer, to see more and maybe even influence what the guy was dreaming about. Otherwise, I’d just get bogged down by the weirdness that went on in this guy’s mind, or the occasional lewd dream.

  However, as soon as I pushed forward, I could feel resistance, though it wasn’t conscious resistance. Unless I missed my guess, this was the guy’s subconsciousness, reacting to a threat to his ego, but I couldn’t be certain.

  Regardless, I noticed that the glimpses I got of the guy’s dreams were shifting, turning into a nightmare. Darkness seemed to be chasing him, trying to devour him, which was an apt metaphor for my actions. His subconscious mind was quite capable, which was a little annoying.

  Still, I kept pushing and prodding. Trying to change the guy’s dreams, to the point that I tried to feed him a few images of naked women I had seen in the past, hoping that he would take the bait. None of Sigmir or me, there was no way I would share those, but I had been in more than one changing room. It might not be nice, but it was something I considered a plausible distraction.

  Sadly, it didn’t seem to work. The darkness that chased the guy was getting closer, until he gasped, trying to rise, while his mind was battering the magic I used to keep him asleep, breaking it in the process. I might have been able to reinforce it, but I had no idea what that would have done to him. It might just break his mind entirely, so I let him escape his nightmares.

  At least those he had while asleep.